02.12.08

I could see this becoming a real time-eater

Posted in 2, Blogroll, Culture at 8:10 pm by Administrator

Several blogs have weighed in on the poll of high-school students fashioned by history professors from Stanford and the University of Maryland regarding the ten most famous Americans of all time.  While the question “who do you think is most famous?” is rather unproductive (”No, this star sold more records!” “No, this politician was mentioned more times in newspaper articles!”), the top ten as pronounced by the poll results is a telling list.  I would imagine the students actually went with what I would have gone with: who was most influential, or had the greatest impact on U.S. history.  Still the answers are further justification for discouragement about the future of our society.  There were some pretty dumb and off-the-wall selections.  Oprah Winfrey?  Marilyn Monroe?

Let’s throw it open here at BN.  Let’s do use the “most influential” criterion.  I don’t know how you’d measure fame or what tht would tell us that would be of any use.

So, I’ll kick things off.  And, being the blogmeister, I reserve the right to post an entirely different list later based on changing my mind.

These aren’t necessarily in order.

Abraham Lincoln

Henry Ford

Dwight Eisenhower

W.C. Handy

John Dewey

Ralph Peer

Ezra Pound

Irving Berlin

David Sarnoff

Franklin Roosevelt

 

I can see already that I’ll be making another list.  It’s a thought-provoking exercise.

 

In fact, let’s try it again.

Abraham Lincoln

George Washington

John Jay

Alexander Hamilton

James Madison

Thomas Jefferson

Henry Ford

Orville Wright

Wilbur Wright

Franklin Roosevelt

I’m sure I’ll be taking another crack at this.

 

In fact, let’s go again right now.

George Washington

Jonathan Edwards

Thomas Edison

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Ernest Hemingway

Louis Armstrong

Dwight Eisenhower

Walter Cronkite

Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

As you can see, my entries are not by any means all people I personally think are cool  Cronkite, for example, makes it because he used the Tet Offensive in january 1968 – which was decidedly not a success for the Viet Cong – to convince the American public that U.S. involvement was a quagmire, which set off real momentum for the antiwar sentiment in this country, something that continues to mess us up to this day.   John Dewey’s educational theories started us down the path of learner-centered education which paved the way for our present preoccupation with self-esteem.

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05.17.06

This one got me to pondering music’s direction – once again

Posted in Blogroll, Music at 12:38 pm by Administrator

I was at the home of a friend who is a very accomplished jazz singer, with some great CDs and performing credentials to her name.  She put a stack of copies of her new CD on the table and told those of us gathered there that this was her new musical focus.  It’s meditation music – bells and bowls and chants.  She’s gearing it toward holistic well-being retreats and such.  It’s well-done and effective, as I would expect from her.  But it was her statement that “I’m tired of trying to scrounge up enough decent-paying jazz gigs to make it worth my while” that kind of jarred me.  Once again I was faced with the question: To what extent can a musician in modern America make jazz a viable income stream?

There was a time, during the swing era, when jazz was America’s dance music.  After World War II, the beboppers took it in a progressive direction, while the jump-blues cats pointed the way toward rock & roll.  But even so, Brubeck, Miles and Chet Baker could amass big fan bases in the 50s, and in the 70s, fusion was all the rage with the college crowd.  Those groups played the same big arenas as the heavy-metal and funk acts.

But where are we now?  I know I’m glad I’m a writer as well as a jazz musician, and that I also can play blues.  And teach.  But jazz isn’t dwindling as a viable art form.  Is it?

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